


Love Bites

by siren_songs



Series: Geraskier Works [5]
Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Prostitution, Angst, Bottom Jaskier | Dandelion, Falling In Love, From Sex to Love, Happy Ending, Hurt Jaskier | Dandelion, Hurt/Comfort, Jaskier | Dandelion Whump, M/M, Pining Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Porn With Plot, Prostitute Jaskier | Dandelion, Prostitution, Top Jaskier | Dandelion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-11
Updated: 2020-04-11
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:08:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23595850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/siren_songs/pseuds/siren_songs
Summary: Jaskier is a prostitute; Geralt just can't seem to stay away.It's--so fucking stupid, but he finds himself falling in love.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia & Jaskier | Dandelion, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Series: Geraskier Works [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1618192
Comments: 72
Kudos: 1104





	Love Bites

**Author's Note:**

> The rape/non-con tag is there purely because Jaskier has been forced into prostitution and thus it's always going to be at LEAST dub-con. Check end notes for further warnings.
> 
> EDIT: it was pointed out to me in a comment that the previous notes I had written here made it seem like all prostitution work is non-con/dub-con, which absolutely wasn't my intention and was ill-written. I have amended the notes as there IS an element of dub-con to this story, hopefully nothing else crops up!
> 
> EDIT 2: people kept commenting that this is riddled with mistakes (which I knew) but it got embarrassing enough that I put it through word editor and all the major spelling errors/grammar errors/etc. have been sorted. hopefully.

There is a chill in the air. Frigid wind bites at the witcher as he pushes his horse on, nudging her into a trot. The mare huffs, tired, but obliges, her breath visible as white smoke curling from her nostrils, her coat the colour of rusted blood: a demoness. A fitting steed for such a rider as he, his eyes burning gold, the stench of death clinging to him like an oil slick.

The man’s hair shines silver in the light of the rising moon, the last beams of the setting sun slinking quickly away, retreating from darkness that approaches.

The mare is tired. Her rider is tired. Ahead on the road, there is a brothel, and a bed.

He was here before, years ago; it has changed since then.

The stable boy is sullen when Geralt hands him the reins with sharp instructions to treat her well, and mind his fingers. The boy scoffs something about having dealt with all manner of animals; Geralt turns and, harshly, informs the boy that Roach was trained as a courser, yet has outridden and outfought destriers more times than he can count. The stable hand shrugs, uncaring.

His fury, he is sure, is a blazing thing, when he finally shoulders his way into the brothel. The bar is full and jovial at this time, though it quiets when Geralt enters, golden eyes flashing with ire and his jaw set in a severe line. It is unlike him to be so snappish with strangers, particularly children—but it has been a hard month, with hard weather and hard work, and his muscles are screaming for a decent bed and a hot bath and a slick mouth around his prick.

The barkeeper eyes him, before throwing down the rag he had been using to wipe the bar down and hesitantly making his way over. Geralt ignores the gaze of the other patrons as they discretely watch the exchange.

“We’ve none left,” the man growls. Geralt doesn’t say anything, just levels him with a stare.

They’ve got _someone_ , he knows. He won’t be swindled.

The man holds out half a moment, before nodding his head and stepping closer, lowering his voice, and speaking almost conspiratorially. “’s it just a mouth you’re after? Really, that’s all I can offer,” he says, and—he’s not lying. For fuck’s sake.

“That’ll do,” he grunts in response. “A hot bath, too. And a bed?”

“Aye, you’ll get them,” the man says, and does not offer his hand to shake. Geralt wouldn’t have taken it anyway. Instead, he disappears back behind the bar and collects a key, before beckoning Geralt to follow.

He is taken upstairs, down a winding corridor, and deposited before the door at the end.

“This’ll be you,” the man informs him, handing him the key. “Y’ can keep the boy for the night or send him away if y’ don’ like sleepin’ next to ‘em. He’ll find a place to kip.” He leaves the witcher there.

Geralt pushes the door open to find a perfectly made-up room, and a man— _boy_ , his mind supplies; skinny, and artfully dishevelled and covered in welts and bruises. However, beneath the oversized shirt and the veritable rainbow of marks crisscrossing his skin, Geralt notes the broadness of his shoulders, the squared line of his jaw—the exhaustion rolling off of him in waves.

He can’t be older than his early twenties—and, thankfully, certainly not younger than eighteen or nineteen. His deceivingly youthful appearance must be appreciated by some of the lower customers of this establishment; Geralt has never entertained such _appetites._

The whore shifts in the chair, eyeing his reflection, before dabbing hesitantly at a nasty-looking bruise framing his cheekbone, a small cut in the centre, where evidently somebody’s ring has caught him on the backhand. His eyes are large and smudged with kohl, though evidently there has been some effort made to scrub the cosmetics away.

His dark hair is fluffed and pushed back from his face, wet strands still curling about his ears and dripping down his neck. There are welts there, too, disappearing beneath the collar of the shirt he wears. His throat is reddened and Geralt can see the faint outline of fingerprints; they will be glaringly conspicuous, come the morning.

Geralt’s first thoughts are that he looks… _vulnerable_. It is not a judgement he makes often. But this boy… he does; he looks awfully vulnerable, sat only in a tunic, legs bare and crossed at the ankles beneath the high-backed chair he sits at.

The marks, under his shirt collar, that had Geralt noted. They’re whip marks. Red welts crossing his thighs, his calves, and evidently up his back, curling around the top of his spine as red veins, written across the top of his skin rather than beneath it.

Curiously, a bolt of indignation _on behalf of the whore_ flashes through him, burns through him, and he looks even closer at the man sat at the table, examining himself in the mirror.

Then he notices the witcher standing in his doorway, and Geralt frowns at the expression of pure horror— _fear_ —that flashes across his face before he schools it into something resembling unconcern.

“I think you have the wrong room, sir,” he says. Geralt holds up the key, and notes how the whore’s face pales.

The silence stretches. He waits for Geralt to make the first move. W _ell-trained_ , something insidious whispers in the back of his mind.

“Your mouth alright?” Geralt asks, before he can follow that train of thought very much further. He looks over the man more carefully, cataloguing the injuries—he’s not so hurt that Geralt feels he ought to turn around and walk out, but not so intact that Geralt isn’t faintly worried about the outcome of tonight.

The whore pauses, and seems to very genuinely consider the question. Geralt almost calls it then and there—but there is something in the man’s eyes that makes him want to stay, and so, weak as he is, he does. He waits.

“Yes, sir,” the whore finally says, his lips quirking in a resigned smile, running a hand through his dishevelled hair, and Geralt nods. This is a transaction. The man has decided that he is capable of providing a service. It can’t be anything more than that; he’s learnt his lesson a thousand times over.

He approaches the man with measured steps, searching his face for any minute twitch of fear or discomfort—but all he sees is resignation. It’s something he is used to seeing on whores’ faces.

He finally stops a foot away, leaving enough room for the man to back away should he so choose; instead, he looks at Geralt through thick lashes, and despite the abuse evident still upon his face, Geralt feels his prick twitch in his breeches.

“What’s your name?” he asks quietly, raising a hand to gently cup the man’s face, feeling the distressed twitch of his jaw beneath his fingers. Ordinarily he would have the man on his knees with his breeches open by this point, but some carnal instinct is growling at him to treat this one gently, and so he does.

“Jaskier,” the whore whispers beneath his palm. He takes a breath, holds it for a moment, and releases, his lashes fluttering shut, and Geralt feels—

Well.

He’s had whores before, men and women both, plenty of times. Ordinarily he finds their company either in the tavern below the rooms, or is led to an individual by the keeper of the establishment, and immediately is stirred by the stink of fear, his senses provoked by the humans’ natural reaction.

Jaskier doesn’t smell of fear.

He smells drained and subdued and faintly sullen, but he doesn’t smell afraid.

He cups the whore’s face in both hands, faintly stroking his thumb over the man’s cheekbone, and Jaskier closes his eyes and hums.

“May I know your name?” he dares to ask, low, sounding uneasy and yet also detached.

“Geralt,” he answers. “Of Rivia.”

“You’re a witcher?” Jaskier finally look up, into his eyes, and—still, there’s no fear there.

His body is a map of the hurts he has endured. Geralt supposes that, as he is, quiet and calm with his palms cupped around the man’s face, he is not the most threatening thing Jaskier has seen tonight.

“Yes,” he says simply, tracing a finger over the corner of Jaskier’s lip, contemplating pressing his own mouth against it, before he releases the whore’s face, allowing his hands to fall to his sides.

Jaskier takes the hint, dropping to his knees with rather more grace than Geralt had expected from one so injured, and reaches for the laces of Geralt’s breeches, undoing them with an ease born only of practise.

Geralt groans, low in his throat, when Jaskier pulls him out of his underclothes, gripping him more boldly than many others would dare to, and rolls his hips when the whore dips his head and licks a stripe along the underside of his cock, following the vein there.

He bites back a curse when, unexpectedly, Jaskier takes him into his mouth and swallows him down, all the way—then pulls back, pulls off completely, and licks at the base of his cock, then up, further, small, teasing licks that set his blood boiling and drawing a flush to his face, his chest.

He sets about creating a rhythm that has nearly no reason, nor rhyme, to it; kissing and licking and suckling at odd intervals to drive Geralt closer to the edge and then keep him there, preventing him from spilling over for what feels like _hours_.

He winds his fingers into Jaskier’s hair, holding him carefully, scratching his nails over his scalp, tugging sharply as he nears his release.

 _Fuck_ , but Jaskier isn’t half _fucking_ talented at this.

Geralt makes sure to tell him that. Makes sure to groan it out as he thrusts lightly into Jaskier’s mouth, rolling his hips in tiny movements, careful not to choke him; he’s been through enough this night, Geralt thinks.

Jaskier moans his appreciation. It feels _fantastic_.

Geralt wishes he could stand there all night, taking his pleasure from Jaskier’s wickedly talented mouth, but as he said before—it has been a long month, of hard days and hard weather and very little comfort in between, and he’s dangerously close to spilling when he grips Jaskier’s hair in warning, a breath punching out as he bites back a shout. He’s _sure_ that Jaskier smirks, smug, around his member, his lips stretching obscenely.

Before long, Jaskier swallows him down and keeps him there, nose pressed against the hair at Geralt’s groin, his throat closing around the delicate head of Geralt’s cock even as one hand comes up to cup the witcher’s balls and—

Geralt comes, hard, spilling down his throat. He grips the whore’s hair and pulls him closer still against him, holding him there while he finishes. He almost feels guilty when Jaskier pulls away with a gasp, come spilling from his lips even as a line of saliva connects the two of them still. With a wince, Jaskier swallows the mouthful, looking up at Geralt all the while.

The mere sight of it nearly instigates a second round.

Instead, Geralt motions for Jaskier to stand, and, when he does, inquires after a bath.

“This way,” he says quietly, his voice somewhat hoarser than it was before.

He leads him through the side door to a small room, another door—a servant’s entrance, Geralt assumes, as the tub is filled and steaming—propped open, which Jaskier dutifully closes before turning back to the witcher.

“Would you like any help?”

Geralt almost says yes.

But—there’s something in Jaskier’s eyes, tired and somewhat hopeless, and Geralt doesn’t want to hurt him further. He knows himself, what it feels like to be used, over and over, with no appreciation nor care for how _he_ is—only the job, always the job. Geralt sells himself just as Jaskier does, and he knows how it can weigh you down.

Gently, he dismisses him, before sinking into the bath with a sinful groan and a violent twitch of the muscles in his thighs as they relent to the heat, unwinding as he submerges himself.

Absently, he muses how a hot bath feels _almost_ as good as a decent fucking blowjob. He should know; he’s having the two back to back.

He expected to return to the bedroom to find Jaskier long gone.

Instead, the whore has settled himself on the bed with a notebook in hand, a quill scratching away at the pages, chewing the end of the feather absentmindedly. He looks… almost domestic. He’s cleaned himself up again, and the worry and burn-out that had been so obviously marked on his features earlier have softened into a look of intense concentration. He seems almost to be muttering to himself.

Geralt hides a smile. He likes seeing this side of them—the human side. The reminder that at the end of the night they roll out of bed and take off their masks and go about their days as ordinary people.

“You’re staying here?” Geralt asks, voice holding no inflection. Neither welcoming nor rebuffing.

Jaskier freezes, before looking up at him as a deer looks, caught in the gaze of a predator. His throat works as he swallows, trying to scrape the words together. “If—if I may?” he asks timidly, the mask of indifference he’d managed to keep in place since Geralt had first walked into the room finally cracking somewhat. “Only—after the last one—um. I’d been given the room to, er—since the common room where the other men sleep—” he breaks off, eyes wide.

Geralt nods his head tiredly before snuffing out the candle sat precariously on the shelf by the door to the washroom, plunging half the room into darkness. Jaskier waits for Geralt to clamber into bed before blowing out his own light, and Geralt does not bother to tell him that he can see fairly well in the utter darkness. It’s been… a long time since somebody took such consideration for him.

After a moment’s hesitation, Jaskier slips his notebook and quill under the bed. Geralt listens to the cadence of his breathing, the way he tries to calm himself as he shifts under the covers, lying next to Geralt’s carefully prone body. He listens for Jaskier’s breaths to slow and even out, before allowing himself to fall asleep.

* * *

Geralt awakes to a man sprawled across his chest, tracing a finger down his side, soothing, lulling him into a calm.

_This is new._

“You’re—touching me,” he says, voice husky with sleep, and Jaskier jerks where he is laying. Evidently, he hadn’t noticed Geralt waking up. He sounds surprised—and still, he doesn’t smell afraid. Geralt is beginning to wonder if Jaskier has any innate survival instincts of any kind.

“—yes?”

“’s nice,” he manages to rasp out, sleep clogging his throat still, before closing his eyes and dozing off again. He barely notices Jaskier surreptitiously moving closer, pressing their bodies together, nor does he notice the arm slung around his waist holding him somewhat tighter.

* * *

Later, when the sun is risen fully, he wakes again. This time Jaskier is sat at his desk, potions and tinctures set out before him as he dips his fingers into some and swipes them over the bruises and welts and cuts that crisscross his body. They look worse than they had last night—but then, Geralt had been seeing them by candlelight, and when they were fresh. They have had a night to settle, and bruises seem to have taken over Jaskier’s body, colouring him deep shades of blue intersected by stripes of red.

He winces each time he swipes some tincture over his injuries, and Geralt cautiously sniffs the air, scenting what Jaskier is using. A cheap herbal remedy, used most often on a child’s skinned knee or on a horse’s back, where leather straps have rubbed him raw. Not on injuries such as what Jaskier has sustained.

Then he shrugs, because Jaskier is not his responsibility, and looks around the room.

“My clothes?”

“End of the bed,” Jaskier replies without looking up, and Geralt spies them, folded neatly. His armour has been wiped down, too, and left in a tidy pile by the door. He wonders who had taken the time to scrub the grime and the blood from the individual pieces and then fit them all back together again. It looks like his shirt has been stitched back together, too, and skilfully.

He’ll be coming back here, he muses. Rather more due to the spectacular service, rather than the quality of their wares, he reassures himself. Of course. Absolutely nothing to do with the man seated delicately to his left, doing his best to look as though he isn’t carefully watching Geralt haul himself out of bed.

He dresses quickly, drops a hefty purse of coin on the desk where Jaskier is sat, and leaves with nothing more said between them. It’s for the best. In all likelihood he’ll never see Jaskier again; this time next week he could be a hundred miles from here, and Jaskier will still be here, servicing men with inclinations in the bedroom that are less easy to accommodate.

He shakes his head. There is no point on dwelling on this.

He’s sure he can still feel the ghosts of Jaskier’s fingers, trailing down his side.

* * *

He resists the urge to return for… about a month, he realises, left somewhat reeling by the utter monotony of the jobs that he has taken. It feels as though he closed his eyes merely for a moment, and in the interim several weeks passed him by.

He judges himself deserving of rest in an actual _bed_ , for once.

It is mere happenstance that the nearest bed is the same brothel he had patronised a month earlier, and it is merely his good fortune that the innkeeper takes one look at what must be a rather fearsome scowl marring his features and hastily tosses him a key. The same one as before.

When he enters the room this time, Jaskier’s skin is unmarred and silky smooth, and Jaskier himself looks briefly surprised to see Geralt shouldering through the doorway, before a quiet smile splits his features for a bare moment, giving way to a professional, sultry smirk that does not quite reach his eyes.

This, Geralt can manage.

He allows Jaskier to approach, maintaining eye contact all the while—a challenge, almost, and Jaskier rises to the occasion with artifice, winding his arms around Geralt’s neck and pressing himself against the witcher, arching his back with the same fluidity of a cat and the shamelessness of a whore.

“Witcher,” he purrs, low.

“Jaskier,” Geralt acknowledges, allowing his own hands to clutch at Jaskier’s hips, pulling him flush against him and pressing their groins together. Geralt’s hardness is met with matching eagerness on Jaskier’s part, who rolls his hips against Geralt’s in a practised motion that has the witcher’s breath hitching.

“Didn’t think you’d come back,” Jaskier murmurs, pressing his lips to Geralt’s jaw. “What do you say you have more than just my mouth this time?”

Geralt barely suppresses a growl. “Bed,” he rasps, and Jaskier grins and breaks away, fingers flying to his shirt and fervently unlacing it, before pulling it roughly over his head.

Geralt allows himself a moment to drag his eyes over Jaskier’s form, noting every little mark and tiny scar. They’ve healed extraordinarily well—but then, Jaskier is merchandise, and he’s worth more undamaged.

This has never bothered him before. It doesn’t bother him now.

Instead, he allows his eyes to darken, revelling in the bob of Jaskier’s throat as he gulps, before stalking forward and pushing Jaskier backward.

* * *

The sex is carnal and scorching and reminiscent more of animals mating than two humans—or even human-adjacent. He comes away with scores raked down his back, courtesy of Jaskier’s clutching nails. His neck and shoulders are littered with bite marks and bruises. He manages to break Jaskier’s headboard quite in two, and Jaskier himself manages to tear up the sheets, and afterwards they don’t even make it to the bath that Geralt had requested—simply fall asleep amid the destruction, exhausted yet sated.

The morning after, Geralt offers to rub salve into some of Jaskier’s more painful-looking injuries, and is politely refused.

He dons his clothes, throws down the coin, and flees.

* * *

The next time—because Geralt cannot seem to get the whore out of his head, and returns after a six week absence—they actually manage to talk, just a bit.

Just enough that Geralt can begin to build a personality around the image of Jaskier that he keeps in his head. Witty and brave and _curious_ , above all.

Curious enough that, after several glasses of warm wine and two orgasms, he lets the prostitute’s mask slip, just a little, to begin to ask Geralt questions about himself beyond the inane small talk that relieve these interactions of just enough awkwardness that Geralt can stand coming back.

Jaskier asks him about his life. About whom he was before—all this, what he wished he could have done.

He seems genuinely sorrowful when Geralt admits that he doesn’t remember, that he had been but a child, that if he had had dreams and aspirations before now, they are forgotten just as surely as footprints in the beach, washed away by the tide.

Geralt notices, as Jaskier surely does, a perfect opportunity for Geralt to return the interest. To ask after Jaskier—who he had been before, and where he wished he could have gone.

He doesn’t take it.

Instead, when the morning rays begin to filter through the windows and Geralt’s body reminds him rather insistently that witchers generally don’t sleep through the night, he forces himself to wake fully, sneaking out of the room with Jaskier collapsed still under the sheets, a purse of coin left behind in the usual place for Jaskier’s troubles.

Perhaps Geralt is becoming too invested.

Perhaps he ought to stay away.

* * *

Staying away, it seems, is an impossibility.

Because Geralt keeps coming back.

* * *

It is the fifth time Geralt visits when he learns something more about Jaskier.

He can _sing_.

Geralt is soaking in the bathtub, leaning his head against Jaskier’s chest as he carefully and fastidiously combs through all the knots, picking out the grime and pieces of foliage that tend to collect under Geralt’s neglect. Jaskier’s fingers are insistent and soothing against his scalp, not too harsh and yet not so light that they are just whispers against his skin, and Geralt is beginning to doze off somewhat when he hears a low rumble coming from behind him.

It’s Jaskier.

He’s _humming_.

He strikes up a jaunty little tune, humming almost nonsensically and yet with just enough consonance that Geralt finds himself _listening_ , being drawn into the performance—enjoying it, even.

He’s never really had much patience for music; he finds himself now wishing that he had, so he might have had something more substantial than, “your humming—it’s, um… nice,” to blurt out to Jaskier.

The humming stops, and Geralt inwardly curses himself, before Jaskier clears his throat and says, “I hadn’t even noticed I was doing it.” He sounds nervous.

Geralt hums. “I’m not really the type to be serenaded,” he says, half joking, half hoping that Jaskier will continue.

After a short pause, he does.

This time it is slower. More melodic. He rests his head back and drifts.

* * *

The bath is still reasonably warm when Jaskier hesitantly shakes Geralt awake, fingers curling into his shoulders.

“Come on,” Jaskier murmurs to him, and Geralt blinks the sleep away, surprised he’d apparently fallen asleep so easily in the presence of a stranger without even the haze of an orgasm to relax him. “Let’s get you to bed.”

Geralt climbs out of the tub readily enough, and allows himself to be steered back into the bedroom before being towelled off and pressed back into the mattress.

“Jaskier—” he tries to say, but, impudently, Jaskier shushes him.

“Easy,” he murmurs. “I’ve never sang for anybody else, you know.” Geralt casts his mind back, and—yes, he thinks he can remember words. Lyrics. A lullaby, almost. It had been… comfortable. “Let me take care of you,” Jaskier continues, crawling between Geralt’s legs and spreading his thighs apart.

Geralt is relaxed already, the tension having slipped away with the heat of his bath and his head almost fuzzy with the steam, the salts, Jaskier’s singing.

And then his prick is enveloped in a hot, wet, heat, and he drops his head back with a low groan.

“Jaskier,” he rumbles, though he isn’t sure what he wants to say.

Jaskier pulls away with a wet _pop_. He grins up at Geralt, eyes sparkling, face flushed, lips swollen, a line of spin connecting to Geralt’s hardened cock: he looks utterly debauched.

Geralt thumps his head back again, eyes fluttering closed. A moan tears from his throat, unintended.

The thing about Jaskier—what keeps drawing Geralt back, again and again, despite his best intentions—is that he seems to _enjoy_ this. He seems to take his own pleasure in it. It’s a hard thing to fake; most whores down bother, preferring instead to get him off as efficiently as they can before enduring his touch for the remainder of his time. Jaskier’s not like that. Geralt has come to him five times now, and not _once_ has he smelt afraid.

For Geralt, it’s… intoxicating.

He feels almost drunk as he thrusts upward, and Jaskier swallows around him without compunction, taking his cock all the way into his mouth, down his throat, before pulling back and laving his tongue over the head.

It’s incredible.

And don’t get him wrong—the blowjob is fucking fantastic and Jaskier is clearly very skilled—but what is truly dizzying is the scent of Jaskier’s arousal, enveloping, driving him to the brink.

Jaskier reaches down, gets a hand on himself, and groans around Geralt’s cock. Geralt jerks his hips and Jaskier chokes before recovering admirably.

He sets a rhythm, pumping himself even as he bobs his head, sucking hard. Geralt is helpless to it, panting harshly, his chest heaving. He fists his hands in the sheets to stop himself for reaching for Jaskier, not wanting to… interfere. Truth be told, he likes this. Likes giving over the control, if only for a moment, if only to a whore.

He risks lifting his head, looking down—looking at Jaskier, who has his eyes open and pinned on Geralt’s face. His cheeks are flushed. His lips stretch obscenely around Geralt’s cock.

It’s—indescribably. Completely and utterly indescribable. The connection blazes through him like a lightning strike and he comes with a shout, finished down Jaskier’s throat, his back arched as he fights to keep his hips in place and his fingers scrabble against the sheets and through it all—through it all, he keeps Jaskier’s gaze, as best as he can.

Jaskier pulls away and Geralt cannot help himself. He reaches down, grabs Jaskier’s chin, and hauls him up, pressing their mouths together in a clash of lips and spit and teeth that is more violence than lust, until Jaskier takes charge, takes control, slows the kiss down into a slow, slick slide of tongues against one another.

For their first kiss, it’s fucking phenomenal.

Geralt reaches down and helps Jaskier bring himself off, his hand rough and calloused against the slick, sensitive skin of Jaskier’s prick, warmed already by Jaskier’s own hand.

Geralt grips Jaskier’s hip with his other hand, preventing him from pulling away when he comes, splattering over Geralt’s stomach, his chest, and Geralt fucking _whimpers_ into Jaskier’s mouth at the feeling.

Jaskier’s rests his forehead against Geralt’s, just for a moment, before pulling away. “That—I shouldn’t have done that,” he sighs.

Geralt opens one eye blearily and fixes his gaze on Jaskier. “—You okay?”

Jaskier gives him this—this sad little smile. “I shouldn’t have kissed you.”

Geralt frowns. “ _I_ kissed _you_. That’s—it wasn’t your fault. I’ll—”

“No,” Jaskier interrupts, “it—we are allowed to kiss our clients, just—I shouldn’t have kissed _you_.”

And, gods, but _fuck_ if that didn’t hurt. Jaskier has averted his gaze and is picking at the sheets, smoothing out the wrinkles before drawing his finger across them and creating new rilles in the fabric.

Jaskier has never smelt afraid of him; that does not mean he cannot still be repulsed by him, by what he’s done.

Geralt is… yes, Geralt is disappointed. He’d thought that perhaps Jaskier might…

Oh, but it doesn’t matter now.

Geralt clears his throat. “Do you want me to go?” He doesn’t want to, particularly, but he also isn’t particularly the type to overstay his welcome. It’ll be cheaper for him to camp outside at any rate.

Jaskier frowns. “No—you keep the room. There are plenty of other places here for me to sleep. I can—I can have someone else sent in for you?” He’s still not meeting Geralt’s eyes.

“—No,” Geralt says after a moment. “No need. And you—we can still share the bed, Jaskier, you don’t have to—”

“I should go,” Jaskier mutters. “I should—I should go.” He scrambles back, struggling to lace his breeches one handed while trying to tug his shirt back into place with the other. Geralt watches him leave.

He doesn’t try to stop him.

* * *

Geralt returns. Like clockwork, like the rise and the set of the sun, like the push and pull of the tides, Geralt returns.

He’s still dripping with ichor when he shoulders into Jaskier’s room, teeth bared and eyes blazing.

Jaskier doesn’t even blink. Just unfolds his legs from where he’s been sat with them crossed beneath him and stands, his back ramrod straight and his shoulders squared. His jaw is set. His eyes are _fierce_.

Geralt relaxes, and growls quietly.

Jaskier bares his teeth in a grin that looks an awful lot more like a snarl and stalks forward, balancing on the balls of his feet. Not one of his footfalls make a noise. Idly, somewhere in the part of his brain that make isn’t fixated on the _fight_ , Geralt notes that he walks like a fighter. Specifically, a trained fighter.

And then Jaskier is right in front of him with a hand gripping the front of his armour, tugging at his straps, tugging him forward.

Between the two of them they get Geralt unclothed and, somehow, on his stomach on the floor. He grits out a snarl and tries to push up, heaving himself—only for Jaskier to plant a hand between his shoulder blades and press him to the floor again. He squirms.

“Stay there for me,” Jaskier purrs. Geralt can only growl in response, helpless.

He’s absolutely filthy. He’s covered in blood—both his and the selkiemore’s he’d been sent to kill—and swamp water that, thankfully (or perhaps not), had washed away much of the viscera he had been coated in.

Jaskier seems unbothered.

Geralt jerks at the feeling of a single, slicked finger probing between his cheeks, tracing lightly over his hole. He squirms again, the sensation both foreign and familiar—he’s done this before, just not for _years_ —and Jaskier draws away.

Geralt has only just loosened his muscles, relaxing as much as he can into the hardwood floor, before he jumps again at the feeling of Jaskier’s palms on his ass, spreading his cheeks. Hot breath ghosts over his entrance and he flinches; a cool stream of air blows over him and he shivers; the finger returns, and he moans, wanton.

“So good for me,” Jaskier murmurs, pressing inside, and all Geralt can do is pant. The finger pushes further, insistent, and Geralt pushes back against it, relaxing around the intrusion. “So good.”

Geralt groans. It’s—it’s—

Jaskier brushes against _something_ , buried deep inside him, a sensitive bundle of nerves that sets every part of him alight, flames licking at his skin, all of the air punches out of him in a desperate gasp and behind him Jaskier huffs a quiet laugh.

More oil is dribbled over him and Geralt whines, pressing his hips back insistently; he’s rewarded with another finger pressing into him. He shakes around it.

There aren’t words. Granted, communication has never been his forte, nor is his vocabulary particularly ripe with flowery language, but even so—everything he could even think to say seems to have fallen right out of his head, chased away by the unrelenting pleasure, and all he can manage is a garbled, rasping version of Jaskier’s name, repeating over and over again. A desperate plea, almost, though for what, he doesn’t know.

Then Jaskier gets a hand on his cock while simultaneously pressing against that spot inside him and he yelps.

It doesn’t take very long after that.

He comes with a shout, writhing beneath Jaskier’s clever fingers and the insistent hand pressing him down, and thuds his head against the ground with a snarl because that’s all he can do, pinned as he is. He keens when Jaskier withdraws his fingers, and whines again when he wipes his fingers clean on Geralt’s thigh. Words, it seems, have deserted him.

“Bath,” Jaskier orders, and Geralt takes a moment—inhales deeply thrice, and lets each breath out slowly—before pushing himself to his knees, and then to his feet. His legs feel strangely wobbly.

“Here, lean on me,” Jaskier tells him, against speaking with that same note of command, and Geralt obeys without question. It’s nice, obeying.

He had come here furious and bristling and wanting to tear Jaskier to pieces, pulling him apart bit by bit, reducing him to nothing so that Geralt might use him as he would—except, here, now, with Jaskier holding him upright and Geralt’s come drying on his belly, he doesn’t want that at all, and he thinks he didn’t want that before, earlier. He’s not sure what he wanted, aside from _Jaskier_.

He thinks about telling Jaskier that. Except he doesn’t have the words, and his tongue is thick and heavy in his mouth anyway when Jaskier pushes him into a steaming tub and chucks a bucket of water over his head without compunction, turning the water around him red and black with the ichor and blood that slides off him in viscous rivulets.

“Filthy,” Jaskier mutters to himself, quite under his breath—and Geralt flinches anyway. _He’s filthy_.

A hand on his shoulder causes his muscles to seize, and he freezes. “You ought to take better care of yourself,” Jaskier admonishes, his hand squeezing and kneading the muscle beneath it. “You deserve better, you know.”

“Do I, now,” Geralt answers quietly, the first words he’s been capable of since he slammed into Jaskier’s room. He’s very deliberately avoiding thinking about what Jaskier is saying. The last time he was here, it was made very clear to him where they stand, and he refuses to feel the pain of rejection again.

“Well, yes,” Jaskier says, as though this is surprising. “How many people have you saved? How many people would have died, directly or indirectly, if you didn’t regularly put your life on the line to kill monsters such as they could never even dream of?”

“It’s what I’m made for,” Geralt answers simply, because it’s true. Because there is no point in hoping for more. Because humans are what they are, and wishing for them to change brings only heartbreak.

“Doesn’t mean you can’t be appreciated for it,” Jaskier says, matter-of-factly, and Geralt frowns.

“I get paid,” he grunts, “appreciation enough.”

Silence. Jaskier begins combing through his hair, carefully unpicking the knots, gamely ignoring the viscera that sloughs away from the strands as he gently separates them. Geralt leans back into the ministrations, glad to feel the touch of somebody who _isn’t_ trying to kill him. It’s been rather too long.

They don’t talk about what happened last time. Geralt isn’t sure whether to feel disappointed, or be glad that Jaskier seems inclined to forgive and forget.

Then Jaskier puts his hand on his shoulders and digs his fingers into the muscle, kneading the knots of tension that seem to accumulate there, and Geralt tips his head back and lets the thoughts slide out of his head and simply drifts.

He goes willingly when Jaskier prods at him, encouraging him to stand, to step out of the tub, to stand quietly while he is towelled off. He feels almost like a horse after exercise, bathed and dried and bedded down. He curls up next to Jaskier and closes his eyes and sleeps.

He wakes late the next morning, and Jaskier is there still, humming and combing his fingers through Geralt’s hair.

There’s a moment, awkward and stilted and tense, when Geralt wants to kiss Jaskier—and he is sure this longing is apparent on his face, because Jaskier grimaces and nearly pulls away, before he sways forward, his lips twitching upward in half a rueful smile, and presses their mouths together.

They don’t say goodbye. Geralt pulls on his clothes and his boots and drops the small sack of coins in its customary place and leaves Jaskier behind in his bed.

* * *

He’s back a week later, and Jaskier takes Geralt apart with his tongue and puts him back together in the hot, steaming bath, rubbing oils into his skin and picking the knots out of his hair.

“You never ask about them,” Geralt says absentmindedly, tracing whorls in the wood of the ceiling.

Jaskier’s hands still on his shoulders. He clears his throat, and asks, “about what?”

Geralt’s lips twitch, just barely, and he ducks his head, splashing his face with water from his cupped hands, rubbing some of the grime from his face. “The scars,” he expounds, rather than make Jaskier guess. “Most people ask about them. You don’t.”

“They’re—” Jaskier hesitates, and Geralt cocks his head, wondering how Jaskier perceives him. Wondering if he even wants to know. “I wasn’t sure if you liked to talk about them,” Jaskier confesses, and that is _not_ what Geralt had been expecting him to say. “If there were—bad memories attached to them.”

Geralt rests his hands on his knees and turns his head, just barely, to the side, just enough to see the line of Jaskier’s side in his peripheral vision. It’s a tense, tense moment. Neither of them speaks.

“Some of them,” Geralt finally grunts, and turns his head back, hanging it down as Jaskier begins to run his fingers through his hair again, scratching his nails into his scalp, soap foaming beneath them. “Not all. Some are just souvenirs of things I’ve fought.”

Jaskier huffs a small laugh. “ _Souvenirs_.” Idly, he traces a long, thinnish scar that is twin to three others, running parallel across his side, striped across his ribcage. Claw marks. He’s not sure where he got them. “Most people would consider a—a book, or a painting, or a _neck scarf_ , a souvenir. Not a scar.”

Geralt smirks. “What use would I have for a neck scarf? It’d get covered in blood. Or torn apart. Or used as a bandage. Or maybe just—”

“Okay! I understand; I’m just saying you should perhaps consider picking up a hobby, or something, if you consider a scar a _souvenir_.”

“I have a hobby,” Geralt tells him. “Monster hunting.”

“That’s a _profession_ ,” Jaskier sounds appalled. “You can’t—you need other things in your life, Geralt.”

 _I have you_ , Geralt very determinedly does not say. That would be a terrible idea. “My horse,” he says after a moment. “Roach.”

“…he’s a _horse_.”

At this, Geralt jerks forward and turns, aghast, his jaw dropped, eyes narrowed in mock fury. “ _Take that back._ ”

Jaskier lifts his hands in surrender. “Okay! I’m sorry! I didn’t realise your _horse_ meant this much to you—”

Geralt has already turned around in mock indignation, not reacting when Jaskier begins running his fingers through his hair again. He _harrumphs_ , to the rather wretched delight of Jaskier, who winds his fingers through Geralt’s hair and _tugs_.

“She’s a good horse,” Geralt relents. “Loyal. Dependable. And she’s clever. Saved my life more than a few times.”

Jaskier scrunches his nose; Geralt doesn’t see. “I was born practically in the saddle, but I don’t think even I ever had a relationship like that with a horse.”

 _Born in the saddle?_ Geralt slips this piece of information away, adds it to the profile of Jaskier he has been unconsciously building of him in his mind. He tips his head back and makes a pleased rumble, low in his throat, when Jaskier tips more water over his hair, rinsing out the suds, before running his hand through the fall of silver a final time.

“Bed?” Jaskier murmurs, and Geralt rumbles again. He never notices how stiffly he holds himself, how strained his muscles become, until all the tension bleeds away. He is slack and pliant beneath Jaskier’s hands as he tugs him up, out of the bathtub, and stands there compliantly as he is towelled off. Jaskier’s voice is a low murmur in his ear, chattering away about nothing at all, filling the silence, and he closes his eyes and hums noncommittedly when it seems appropriate that he should answer.

The bed is soft; he sinks into it with a groan, and a purr rumbles from his throat when Jaskier curls into his side, sweet-smelling and tender and warm against his side.

* * *

Spring turns to summer turns to autumn, and the days are growing crisper and the skies are turning greyer and Geralt keeps returning to Jaskier’s bed.

* * *

He builds an idea of who Jaskier is underneath the—the costume he wears, that he presents, to his clients.

It’s wishful thinking, he knows. A fantasy. A chimera that likely holds no more substance than the guise Jaskier wears for the men he serves, and he is torn, between admiring the fabrication he has created, and wanting to _know_ Jaskier, properly.

He takes every tidbit, every minute piece of information he is given, and he hopes for more while clinging tightly to the dream he has built in his mind, and he decides that if Jaskier wants Geralt to _know_ him then it is up to him to talk about himself, because Geralt isn’t going to press.

Likely Jaskier wears a mask with him too; likely Jaskier puts up with him, as he does with all his clients, the ones about whom he complains to Geralt—those who see him as a commodity, rather than a person.

Geralt pays him for his time. Of course, Jaskier is going to be who he wants, offer him the merchandise he has purchased. It’s unfathomable to think otherwise. That these slips of the mask that Geralt is privy to is anything other than the show Jaskier is putting on for a client.

If Jaskier really, truly wants Geralt to know him… he can talk to him, and Geralt will listen, because Geralt is an _idiot_ who has fallen in love with a whore and wants so much more than he could ever pay for.

* * *

“Will you come back?” Jaskier asks, when Geralt finally pulls away, out from beneath the sheets, and begins to don his clothes.

“Yes,” Geralt says immediately, then pauses, because—

Well, because winter is nigh upon them, and he needs to be turning towards Kaer Morhen, and also because this has gone too far.

He’s a witcher.

He can’t have someone, no matter how much he _wants_.

No matter his feelings, the way his stomach clenches upon seeing—him. _Him_. The way his hands feel in Geralt’s hair, on Geralt’s shoulders. The way his thighs feel about Geralt’s hips, hooking around him, drawing him closer. The way his mouth moans Geralt’s name, the way his lips feel when Geralt kisses him.

The way he looks, when morning dawns and he hasn’t yet awoken, when sunbeams filter into the room and illuminate his skin, gilding him in soft light, turning him from something beautiful into something ethereal. Into something to be treasured.

He’s a witcher, and Jaskier is a _whore_ —likely bound to this establishment, else the yearning and the wanderlust and the _craving_ for something more, for something better, for something _beautiful_ , that Geralt thinks (knows) Jaskier harbours—they would have pushed him from this place years ago, pushed him to _make_ something of himself, and Geralt can’t give that to him. Can’t give him that _more_. Can’t get involved; he learnt that lesson decades ago, and he’s stuck to his teachings ever since, because—

Because it’s _never_ worth it.

Because if he were to make an offer, to take Jaskier away, to give him his freedom and possibly a place by Geralt’s side, and Jaskier were to refuse—

It is… perturbing, is all.

This has gone too far, he’s sure of it.

“…Maybe,” he amends, turning away from the frown that mars Jaskier’s lovely face, and finishes lacing his boots.

He drops the small sack of coins in its usual spot and resolutely ignores the small voice in his head that is accusing him of _fleeing_.

* * *

Kaer Morhen is, as it always is, desolate, and cold, and the grey stone walls and snow-capped peaks and bare, stark courtyards do nothing to allay the feeling of listlessness that dogs Geralt’s every step.

Vesemir notices, because of course he does.

He doesn’t say anything, because he lives to cause Geralt suffering; Geralt, of course, knows what his old teacher wants—he thinks Geralt ought come to him himself with his troubles, ought to _seek out_ the wisdom of his teacher, else he won’t listen to what Vesemir has to say. It’s awfully frustrating.

It doesn’t help matters that Vesemir is right, of course.

Geralt lasts… oh, about a week, until he’s tired of Lambert taking the piss out of his more-than-usual-mournful demeanour at every turn, before he seeks out his old teacher.

Vesemir listens to his troubles with a frustratingly blank countenance, and waits until Geralt has spilt all of his troubles, every last half-formed thought he has had on the subject—even the opinions he hadn’t _known_ he had held, until Vesemir’s knowing gaze tears them from him with frustrating ease.

“You know what you have to do,” Vesemir tells him wisely. Geralt pauses.

“You’re fucking useless, you know that?”

Vesemir only smiles. “You knew what I would say before I ever said it. I’ll say it anyway, of course, because hearing it out loud might help—but I’m not going to tell you anything you don’t already know.”

Geralt waits him out. Vesemir searches his face, before sighing, and continuing. “This life—the Path, the isolation, Kaer Morhen—it was chosen _for_ you, not _by_ you. I think you deserve to have something of your own, no?”

Geralt knows there is more. Vesemir could lecture for _hours_ , if the mood struck him; likely, he knows that talking and talking and talking will only sour Geralt to the truth that he—that he already knows.

He takes a long swill of his ale. It’s warm compared to the chill in the air and sweeter than he usually drinks—to Vesemir’s taste (and Eskel’s, no matter what the latter claims)—but he downs it anyway, shying away from the conclusions he has come to.

He nods to Vesemir, who deigns to nod back, and goes to find a drinking partner who won’t import words of wisdom that slur beyond comprehension.

* * *

Lambert is, as he always is, an asshole.

“A _whore?_ ” Raucous laughter follows.

Eskel puts a consolatory hand on Geralt’s knee and squeezes.

“Ignore him,” he murmurs, and Geralt closes his eyes and wonders if he would be where he is today had he not had Eskel by his side, all these years. “He’s just never had somebody to genuinely care about.”

“By the sounds of it, neither has our Geralt, until now,” Lambert sneers, his mouth a cruel twist that puts Geralt’s teeth on edge.

Eskel bares his own teeth. “You’re a cunt, Lambert,” he hisses. To Geralt, he says, “fucking ignore him. Now tell me about this man that has you so… flustered.” He says _flustered_ like he wanted to say something else, and the look on his face tells what exactly he would preferred to have said. ‘Aching’, comes to mind.

They drink well into the night, sat atop one of the towers that crumbles beneath them, having battered open one of the hatches that leads to the roof. The sky above them is full of stars that become blurry and unfocused the more of the fiery, deliciously strong liquor he consumes, burning down his throat, inebriating him beyond what he usually manages. Granted, he ordinarily drinks shitty ale in a backwater tavern in some insignificant, tiny little town, not even noted on a map.

“What’ll you do?” Lambert manages to ask him, the words strangled by the drink. Geralt shakes his head.

“Don’t know,” he grunts.

Eskel snorts derisively, to which Geralt offers a silent snarl and Lambert huffs a laugh, agreeing.

“You’re gonna take him away,” Eskel tells him.

“Yeah, you are.”

Geralt shoots the both of them filthy looks, and pointedly doesn’t answer.

* * *

Winter passes them by; the days blur into one monotonous trudge, filled with snowbanks and icy gusts and hunting, out on the Trail, stalking deer and elk and snaring braces of rabbits that are barely mouthfuls to half a dozen hungry witchers.

Coën makes his way there, arriving one blustery evening when it is completely white outside, the ground and the sky and the air two feet in front of one’s face completely indistinguishable, melting together in a flurry of ice and snow.

“Griffin,” Geralt greets sombrely.

“Wolf,” Coën cocks his head at Geralt, equally serious.

The moment hangs, and then Coën breaks first, grinning sharply at his friend and reaching forward to grip Geralt’s shoulder. Geralt grabs him back, ignoring the ice that coats the Griffin and freezes to his hands, slaking off Coën’s cloak and melting in a puddle at their feet.

Coën, thankfully, sides with Eskel in regard to Geralt’s… predicament. He’s sympathetic and an attentive listener, and drinks heavily with Geralt whenever the days are a touch too maudlin and the evenings promise to be more so, offering his company.

Lambert curses the lot of them out, but drinks anyway, suffering Geralt’s drunken ramblings about Jaskier.

* * *

By the end of it, Geralt is ready to throttle Lambert, like usual, and promises to meet up again with Eskel, like usual, and Coën leaves them before all of them, like usual. Vesemir, as always, is unchanging, steel-eyed as he watches his charges return out on the Path.

* * *

Spring dawns brightly, and Roach is bright-eyed when they leave, stepping out gamely onto the Trail.

Geralt thinks about delaying going to see Jaskier, instead finding jobs and killing monsters and prolonging the inevitable.

It’s pure instinct, a gut feeling he has listened to all his life, that causes him to turn Roach’s head towards Redania, towards the brothel he has been frequenting for the last year. Towards Jaskier.

* * *

He feels, almost, that things ought to be different. His decision churns in his gut, the knowledge of what he intends to do—what he intends to reveal—and yet the stablehand is a sullen as when Geralt first met him, as uncaring: unchanged but for another year adding two inches to his height and a littering of fuzz across his jaw. The tavern itself holds the same regulars, the innkeeper expresses the same disdain for Geralt, the ale is as shit as it always is.

Jaskier looks the same as he always does when Geralt opens the door, fills the frame with his bulk. He looks the same, and yet—he looks _tired_ , shadows under his eyes that have been covered with makeup and a bright smile and yet they glare at Geralt still, obvious to him as they wouldn’t be to anybody else. There is a tightness to his mouth where usually there is only a sleek grin, flirty and comfortable and well-worn.

“Jaskier,” Geralt rumbles.

“Geralt,” Jaskier breathes, disbelieving. “You—came back, I wasn’t sure you would.”

Geralt tilts his head to the side, his mouth curling in a small, sad little smile. “I—was at Kaer Morhen. For the winter.”

Jaskier frowns. “That’s the Witcher—home, no? Your stronghold?”

Geralt nods. He swallows. “Can I—come in?”

Jaskier grins, this time properly. Neither makes mention of the fact that Geralt is here as a customer, that Jaskier is _merchandise_ , that this is a transaction; neither makes mention that Geralt needn’t ask _permission_ to come in.

“What’s it like?” Jaskier asks, coming forward to help Geralt with his armour; he can almost imagine that barely two weeks has passed since last they saw one another, rather than months.

“Kaer Morhen?” Geralt frowns, “it’s—cold. Dark. Looming.”

“Mm,” Jaskier hums. “Sounds like somebody else I know.”

Geralt hums in agreement, eyes softening at the smile that crinkles Jaskier’s face.

He’s stripped to his undershirt, to his trousers, when Jaskier goes to pull his shirt over his head and Geralt stops him. Jaskier frowns up at him.

“Are you alright?” he asks, his voice soft, and Geralt leans down and kisses him in lieu of an answer.

It’s a nice kiss. It’s a _long_ kiss. Geralt missed this, he realises: Jaskier’s mouth hot and slick against his own, his hand fisted in Geralt’s shirt. His scent, his taste, curling against Geralt’s senses.

“I want you to fuck me,” Geralt gasps when they break apart, and Jaskier looks at him like—

\--like Geralt has just offered him the _world_.

“You—are you sure?” Jaskier says, eyes bright and wide and startlingly blue, and confused. “You don’t have to—”

“I want you to,” Geralt interrupts him. “I want _you_.”

They aren’t the words he’d intended to say. They aren’t the words that Jaskier hears, either—Jaskier’s eyes widen, and his hands clench in Geralt’s shirt, against his chest, and his mouth opens just slightly, and Geralt knows that what Jaskier heard is what Geralt _feels_ , in his chest, the words that he could never say.

Jaskier slumps. His smile is dazzling. “Can I—take all this off?” he asks, gesturing to his face, and Geralt blinks and nods. He walks over to the bed, presses his hand down on the blankets, feeling the fur beneath his fingers, the scratchy coverlet beneath it, watching Jaskier sit at his table, his slightly tarnished mirror showing Jaskier carefully wash the powder he used to conceal the shadows beneath his eyes, the tiredness that is apparent on his face.

“Come to bed,” Geralt says quietly, when Jaskier sets down his washcloth.

Jaskier gets up, curls his fingers around the hem of his shirt, intending to pull it off.

“No,” Geralt tells him, finding and holding his gaze. He pauses, then lifts the covers beside him imploringly, and says again, “come to _bed_.”

Jaskier freezes for half a second before his shoulders drop and he closes his eyes, his mouth twitching into an unwilling smile. “Okay.”

He extinguishes the candle on his desk, and Geralt waits for him to crawl into bed beside him before blowing out his own candle, climbing under the covers on his own side. Jaskier curls into him, lays his head on Geralt’s chest.

* * *

He’s pinned beneath Jaskier’s fingers; desperately, he tries to rut into the covers, but there is a pillow beneath his stomach and all his manages is a weak glide of his cock against the sheets—nowhere _near_ enough to get him off; enough to drive him mad, to drive him further to the edge, but not over it.

It’s been hours. _Hours_.

He whines again, strains against the headboard where he grips the wooden slats, his knuckles white and splintering the wood beneath his fingers. He can’t let go—Jaskier ordered him not to—but Melitele’s _tits_ , does he ever want to.

“Not—enough, not _enough_ ,” he gasps out. Jaskier hushes him.

“Easy,” he murmurs, “I have you.”

“You’ve got me—”

“I have you,” Jaskier reassures, running a hand down Geralt’s thigh and twisting his fingers—three now—where they are pressed all the way into his slicked hole, eliciting a choked-off whine.

He’s so close. He’s so _close_. He pants, sweat beading on his skin and pooling in his lower back and _dripping_ , running in lines down his skin. His cock throbs beneath him, the glans drooling slick into the sheets where it rests lightly against the bed, sensitive and twitching beneath him.

Jaskier spreads his fingers, and Geralt groans, gripping the headboard—snapping it beneath his fingers. He writhes for a moment before grasping another board and holding onto that, feeling the bed groan in protest. He jerks his hips again, stuttering, _notenoughnotenoughnotenough—_

“Alright,” Jaskier murmurs, withdrawing his fingers. Geralt whines. There’s a pause, and then the cushion is tugged down his body, pulled from his stomach and settled instead so that his cock—painfully hard, soso _sensitive_ —rests upon it, and Geralt moans and ruts against it. A hand on his hip stills him, and he gasps out an unintelligible word he thinks he meant to be _“please”._

Then, Jaskier is behind him, pressing _into_ him, and it’s—

It’s—

He keens, once, as Jaskier sheathes himself inside, and presses his face into the covers and _comes_ , wetting the cushion beneath him and clenching around Jaskier, who hisses and curses and grips Geralt’s hip with enough force to possibly leave bruises. Hopefully.

Geralt presses back. Presses for more. Lifts his hips and drags his oversensitive cock against the cushion, feeling the needle-burn sensation and _relishing_ it, because it’s _Jaskier_ —

Because it’s been _months_ —

Because there are far, far too many emotions involved in this, and Geralt is drunk on them, drunk on the ragged edge of Jaskier’s voice as he murmurs praise in his ear, thrusting into him again, and again—

He’s overstimulated and growling at the sensation when Jaskier reaches up, presses a hand against his face, his thumb against Geralt’s lips.

He knows what Jaskier wants. Tentatively he opens his lips, swipes his tongue against Jaskier’s thumb, allows him to press his fingers into his mouth and hold his jaw open, forcing the sounds he’s been attempting to hold back to spill out. He groans, louder than he was before, and his harsh panting is a thunderous drumbeat in his ears, and he sucks on Jaskier’s fingers because Jaskier is murmuring that he’s _good, he’s so good—_

Then Jaskier finds his prostate, and he _wails_.

Of course, Jaskier shifts to accommodate, laying solidly against his back, barely even thrusting in and out any more—just a slow, lazy drag against that one spot, _so sensitive_ , back and forth, just an inch or so, _over and over and over again_ , and he longs to put his head down and close his eyes and just _feel_ , just experience all of it, but Jaskier has his head pulled back with his fingers in Geralt’s mouth, forcing him to experience each sensation as vividly as possible, not allowing him the escape of putting his head down and drifting.

Jaskier withdraws his fingers and tangles them in Geralt’s hair, long and thick and perfect for _pulling_ , which he does, hard, pulling his head back, forcing his groans and whimpers and pleading to fall from slackened lips. He pulls out, almost all the way, and _slams_ back, in, and Geralt can’t do anything but pant, the words falling from his mouth barely even coherent— _“please, no, more, don’t stop, don’t_ fucking _stop—oh, gods—”_ Jaskier’s name slurring into an unintelligible mumble as Jaskier pulls out and rams in again, over and over, _too much too much too much—_

Jaskier’s grip tightens in his hair. “I’m going to come,” he gasps out, gasps into Geralt’s ear, and he nods as best he can with his hair still trapped, nods desperately, and his mouth moves to shape the words he wants to say but all that comes out are wanton moans. Desperate moans.

Jaskier shifts, and Geralt hisses as his hips are forced into the cushion beneath him. “ _Move_ ,” Jaskier orders. “Get yourself off—come on—”

And he does. He ruts and presses against Jaskier and between the two of them, despite the orgasm he’d had earlier—thank the gods for witcher stamina—he manages to come again, wailing, roaring, and Jaskier comes too, filling him, his seed hot inside him, and it’s—

It’s _everything_ he’d wanted. Everything he’d been thinking about, in Kaer Morhen.

Jaskier pulls out, and Geralt cannot summon the energy to complain, so he simply whines, quietly, and Jaskier presses a hand against his hip— _praise_ —and slips the cushion from beneath him. The blankets beneath him are dry, so he curls into them, sweat cooling on his skin.

The bed dips beside him, and he feels a hand smooth over his flank, and he sleeps.

* * *

When he wakes, it’s afternoon, and there is a tray of food on the table beside the bed. He can hear Jaskier in the adjoining washroom, cleaning himself off.

He barely tastes the food as he wolfs it down, simple fare of buttered bread and chicken and potatoes that he manages to pair without too much mess and eat the lot of it in several minutes. He spies another tray, empty, sitting under the one from which he eats, and does not feel guilty about leaving none for Jaskier as the other has already eaten.

Then he rises, and goes to find Jaskier in the washroom, sitting back in the tub with a blissful expression on his face.

“May I come in?” Geralt rumbles a quiet question, and notes how the corner of Jaskier’s lips quirk before he nods silent assent. Geralt enters, and kneels behind Jaskier, reaching for the soap he knows Jaskier uses on Geralt’s hair, smelling of honey and spices.

Jaskier tips his head back at the first touch of Geralt’s hands to his scalp, running his fingers through Jaskier’s already-wet locks, causing the tension to bleed from his shoulders as he relaxes back into Geralt’s hold. As Geralt carefully, gently, washes his hair, as Jaskier has done for _him_ so many times before.

He’s so _delicate_ —Jaskier, that is. So good. Unequivocally gentle. There is something soft and warm inside of him that hasn’t been killed yet by this life, that Geralt knows would die if he were to take Jaskier out on the road with him.

He is suddenly, horribly uncertain about his own decisions.

He shouldn’t—he oughtn’t place the burden of his own feelings on Jaskier, not when he himself isn’t very certain about them yet. Not when he can feel this uncertainty, churning in his stomach.

Jaskier is too good for him.

He’d always known it, of course; he’d trembled under each and every touch that Jaskier deigned to bestow, and somehow, he’s managed to trick himself into thinking that Jaskier would _want_ him—

And, in a fit of awful lucidity, he makes… a choice.

“I can’t come back,” he says.

“Okay.”

“You know why,” he says, his voice very, very, even, his head buzzing and his hand soft still in Jaskier’s hair but he’s not even thinking about that, isn’t concentrating about what he is doing—his mind is flashing back to each and every time he walked into Jaskier’s room, right from the very beginning, and how Jaskier began to look up at him with genuine affection in his eyes, genuine pleasure that he has returned, and he almost breaks, almost takes it back, but—

“I do,” Jaskier interrupts, his voice wobbly but brave. “You love me.”

It’s hard, hearing it out loud.

“Yeah,” he says finally. “I—”

He can’t say it. Jaskier’s hands clench on the edge of the tub.

“I think you should go.”

He flees.

* * *

The graveir rots where it sits, feeding on the corpse before it, cracking the bones with rather more glee than a living dead thing ought to be capable of. Geralt rolls his wrist, hefting the weight of his sword, and brings it down upon the creature’s head, slicing cleanly through its neck and separating the beast into two parts, its head rolling across the ground.

Before it, the body slumps, no longer being fed upon, and Geralt barely spares it a glance as he strides through the viscera, collecting the graveir’s head and dropping it carelessly in his bag before slinging it over his shoulder.

It’s been… oh, it’s been maybe three weeks since he’d run from Jaskier’s room, run from that brothel, run from his feelings. Run from what he knows he can’t have.

Since then he’s had two shit jobs with worse pay and now this, a graveir: stinking and stupid and not worth the paltry sum advertised, but Geralt needs the coin.

He needs to get his head together. Needs to forget the blue-eyed whore with those sinful lips who managed to capture his heart in a _year_. Needs to move on.

Roach nickers to him as he approaches, then lowers her head to begin grazing again, barely flickering an ear at the foul odour emanating from the bag as he slings it across her haunches, tying it onto the saddle. The head hangs heavy on her near side; he evens the weight out with a water skein he had tied to the front of her saddle, packing it into the saddle bag on her far side, testing the pull of the girth before he slips off her hobble and pulls her back toward the path.

He needs to forget Jaskier. He puts his foot in the stirrup, pulls himself aboard, and points Roach back toward the piece of shit, unremarkable little town he’d picked up the contract from.

* * *

It’s a wyvern.

It’s fucking _loud_.

The thunder of leathery wings overhead, a furious screech, and the _crunch_ of his sword bulling through the beast’s neck rather than cleanly slicing; he roars, a feral sound, and the answering _crash_ of the wyvern’s body falling inelegantly to the ground serves as a revelation, of sorts—he could die at _literally any time_ , and what the fuck would be the point? Of any of this?

He’s going to Jaskier. He’s made up his mind.

He’s _going_.

* * *

He isn’t going.

He can’t.

His hands shake. Blood drips from his fingers, black ichor and red plasma. Like oil and water they refuse to mix, coagulating into putrid clumps as the ichor hardens and the blood dries over it, rusted red on inky black, and Geralt watches curiously while his heart beats a furious pattern, so much slower than a human’s, so much faster than it ought to be, pumping the poison out of him.

His eyes are coal pits and they see _everything_.

He collects the heads, rolls them into his pack, then sits with his back to a tree and waits for the tremors and the racing of his pulse and the _loudness_ of the world around him to pass, waits for his hands to stop shaking and the ground to stop spinning and the smell of wet earth and decay to stop being quite so overpowering.

He knows how he looks, when he’s like this. Alabaster skin, eyes of pitch, which seeps into his blood, the veins on his face, a cracked mask of stark white, and darkness leaking through.

A monster.

Humans flinch at the sight of him, at the sight of something so _inhuman_ , and he doesn’t care to discover what Jaskier’s reaction would be. Doesn’t care to learn what he would do, if Jaskier flinched at the sight of him. If Jaskier smelt of fear, as he hasn’t in _months_ now—as he never really did.

Geralt lays his head back against the tree.

* * *

Geralt, of course, has always been… weak. Always _felt_ things, far more than his brothers ever did, and so he has always had to work far harder suppress them, this _weakness_ that encourages him to give precious coin to starving families, to refuse pay in villages where they have none to give, to offer his last chunk of bread or salted meat to beggars whom he just cannot ignore.

This weakness is undeniable, in that he stands here, before the brothel which he had _sworn_ to himself he would never return to, and he knows that he is going to walk through those doors and climb those stairs and tumble into Jaskier’s bed again.

Because he’s _weak_.

This time, however—this time, he tries the door, and finds it bolted shut.

And… this time, he can _smell_ something he really oughtn’t, and he finds himself considering forcing the door open, finding the source of that smell.

The brothel, ordinarily, smells of drink and piss and vomit, downstairs; it smells of sex and soap and perfumes, upstairs.

Ordinarily, it does not smell of _blood_.

He grips the door and _pulls_ —and, really, he’s doing them a favour, because the lock snaps unerringly easily and this means they’ll have to buy a new one to replace it.

He steps inside, keeping his footsteps deliberately silent, noting the shifting of the planks beneath him and bracing his weight so as to not cause them to creak.

Then he _hears_ it.

The muted _slap_ of leather on flesh, muffled cries, a low growl of words Geralt can’t pick out through the haze of the fury that suddenly rips through him.

He steps through the threshold, into the tavern, pricking his ears. _Witcher hearing_ , he’s had hissed to him, by those who hadn’t known of it and accidentally spilt to him their secrets; he hadn’t heard the beating, nor the cries—too deep in his own head. Lost in his thoughts. It’s a rare occurrence for him, and he ought not have let it happen at all.

The tavern is nearly empty when he steps into the main room. There’s nobody behind the bar, nobody at the tables.

There are two men.

One, naked, tied down over the bar itself, his stomach resting on the sanded wood and his legs dangling over the edge, his arms stretched in front of him, bound together and bound to something that prevents him from pulling away. Each of his ankles are chained to one of the beams that holds the bar surface up, forcing his legs to stay apart.

His back, the backs of his thighs, his arse—the skin is ragged, sliced into ribbons, flesh bared, blood steaming in the ear.

The man behind him grunts as he brings the lash down again, it’s—the brothel keeper.

His victim groans as his skin splits again, and Geralt growls in response, the smell of blood in the air and the _pleasure_ rolling off of the brothel keeper now a heady mixture that makes his own blood boil, his eyes narrow, his hands clench as he hisses out his frustration.

“The door was locked,” the brothel keeper says in surprise, turning to face him. Not smart, then.

“Barely,” he answers, jaw clenched. His eyes flicked to the man strapped down over the bar, now shivering. There is a puddle of blood at his feet and Geralt does not like how large it has grown. The stink of it is overpowering.

“Well,” the keeper gestures with his lash, apparently at a loss as to why Geralt is here. “Want a go?”

Geralt considers it. Considers taking that lash and beating the man until he’s just a bloodied hunk on the ground. The man strapped over the bar is one of his whores, Geralt is sure—he’s too hairless, too groomed, under all the blood and sweat, to be anything other—and this is so far beyond what Geralt considers to be _right_ that, for this instant, he puts aside everything he has ever learnt about being a _hero,_ and lets all the scorn and derision and _hate_ that he can manage colour his words into something twisted, something to be spat out.

“I’ve killed monsters of every ilk,” he begins, “but _you_ might just be one of the worst.”

The smile has slid from the keeper’s face. The stench of fear is so heavy in this room that Geralt could almost bask in it, if he didn’t know that most of it came from the man now shivering over the bar, muscles quaking from strain and terror and fading adrenaline.

“He’s mine by law,” the keeper says, voice tremulous. “Indebted to me, he’s still got three years to go on his contract.”

“Does this,” Geralt tilts his head, indicating the blood, the whip, the depravity, “look like your standard _contract?”_

“Have to discipline them,” the inn keeper shrugs, and lifts his chin, as if Geralt can’t see or _smell_ that he’s pissed himself.

“Discipline.”

“He bit a customer’s cock. Damn near chewed it off. Had to teach him a lesson.”

Geralt considers gelding this man, then imagines all the diseases he’s like to get his hands on while doing so, and decides not to put his witcher metabolism to the test.

He shakes his head, tired of talking. “Untie him,” he grunts, tilting his head, then bares his teeth when the inn keeper hesitates.

He unsheathes a knife, attending first to the man’s legs, slicing through the bonds that keep them spread and allowing his feet to finally rest on the floor again. He steps around the bar, walking to the man’s head.

It lifts. Moans. “Hm?” the man says, a questioning noise, and Geralt freezes.

Scents the air again.

And then again, because—it’s very faint, and it _can’t_ be right. Can’t be.

Can’t be.

“Quiet, Julian,” the keeper hisses, and Geralt snaps.

In a single bound he’s over the bar, and his fingers itch for a knife but he wants to _feel_ this, wants it to be slow, wants to watch the light die from the man’s eyes and so he wraps his hands around the keeper’s neck, not so tightly as to snap the bone, nor crush the windpipe—but enough to close it. Enough to cut off the man’s air.

Enough to see the fear, the pure abiding _terror_ of knowing that you’re about to die, slowly and horrible, unable to do anything about it. Geralt grins, feral, his eyes glinting with something unholy, and does not lighten his grip nor does he increase it, and the man’s face reddens and then purples as he hyperventilates. He opens his mouth, trying to gasp something, and Geralt bares his teeth in a silent snarl.

They keep eye contact the whole time, until the keeper’s eyes slide shut and Geralt finally, finally snaps his neck, letting the body drop to the floor in an undignified heap.

Then he turns to Jaskier.

His eyes are squeezed shut, and he pants for breath, quick, shallow gasps.

“Jaskier,” Geralt murmurs, as much compassion and care in his voice as he can muster. “Jaskier, it’s alright now—you’re safe.”

* * *

Triss waves away any offer of payment Geralt tries to give her.

They’re in Jaskier’s room, Jaskier sleeping soundly on the bed, his back horribly scarred but no longer open and broken and bleeding.

“There are poultices, to help mend some of the scarring,” she tells him quietly, and Geralt nods. If _this_ is how the keeper had ‘disciplined’ his wares, then there ought to be some lying around—he has to make a profit, at the end of the day, by selling unblemished merchandise.

“I owe you,” he tells her sincerely, since she won’t allow him to pay her.

Triss only nods, does not try to argue further, knowing there is little point in doing so.

“He’ll be fine. Give him a day to sleep, then feed him up, then make him sleep some more. He’ll be just fine.”

Geralt bows his head, lacking the words to express his gratitude. Triss raises a hand, presses it to his cheek, a smile gracing her face.

“Be good to yourself,” she murmurs, and then smiles slyly, turning coy eyes to Jaskier in his bed. “And be good to him.”

“I think I ruined it, last time,” he manages to confess, the words like shards of glass in his throat. “Not sure he’ll give me another chance.”

“Well,” Triss says briskly. “If he’s anything like you’ve told me, I’m sure you two will manage.” With that piece of wisdom imparted, she finishes closing up her bag, packing away her potions and poultices and herbs, her hands steady and sure as she slips the vials away.

“Be careful, Triss,” he manages to tell her, and she grins, before stepping through a portal and away.

He turns back to Jaskier, taking the chair he’d pulled over from the table Jaskier sits at to do his cosmetics and setting it closer to his bedside. He sits in it stiffly, and settles in to wait.

* * *

The brothel, and the tavern below, is eerily quiet.

Geralt had gone around the rooms, telling the whores of their newfound freedom, and sent them on their way with the coin from the man’s own possessions, divided evenly between all of them. They leave with as little as they can carry, some food in a knapsack, some coin in their purses, and barely any words between them, flitting off into the night. Geralt imagines they’ll be just fine.

He’s collected a plate of food, a pitcher of water, and waits anxiously for Jaskier to rise, to stir even a little.

It’s been nearly a day.

 _Be patient_ , he tells himself. _Patient_.

* * *

It’s only a twitch, at first. Just a twitch. His eyelids flicker, just the barest tic, and Geralt squeezes his hands into fists and forces them to stay by his side.

“Mh,” Jaskier mumbles, mouth dry, and Geralt leans in, tilting his head.

“Jaskier,” he murmurs. “Jas—you’re okay.”

“Mm,” Jaskier says again, and then, “never been called ‘Jas’ before. That’s new.”

His voice is croaky and quiet, and were it not for his witcher hearing Geralt likely would have had a harder time understanding him. As it is, he fills a cup with water and presses it into Jaskier’s hand, helping him sit up against the headboard and lifting it to his mouth. Jaskier winces when his back settles against the wood, as though expecting it to hurt, and his mouth twists and his eyes fly open when there is nothing.

“I—have a sorceress friend,” Geralt explains, eyes flicking away. “She, um. She fixed you up.”

Jaskier smiles faintly. “Figured you’d come back,” he confesses, twitching his hand to Geralt’s, who takes it gingerly and carefully thumbs over the knuckles. Idly, he notes the scars and callouses that mar his skin, marks and stories of fights long since won, compared to the softness of Jaskier’s own hand. “What happened?” Jaskier asks quietly, tightening his fingers around Geralt’s in a tiny squeeze.

“Showed up,” Geralt murmurs back, “smelt blood. Forced the door. Found that _bastard_ cutting him to pieces—he’s dead—then I untied you, brought you to your bed, called Triss. My friend,” he explains, seeing the confused wrinkle of Jaskier’s brow. “She fixed you up. You’ve been asleep—oh, about a day, now.”

Jaskier nods his head, and doesn’t offer his own explanation, focusing instead on the plate of food at Geralt’s elbow. “For me?” he asks, hopeful, and Geralt nods, carefully placing the food in Jaskier’s lap. It’s simple stuff—some vegetables, some bread, chunks of fish that fell apart between Geralt’s fingers when he was done cooking them—nothing too difficult to eat.

Jaskier eats slowly, chewing each piece as though he’s thinking about it.

He eats half the plate and hands it back to Geralt, who frowns at him before finishing it off.

“Don’t want to push myself,” Jaskier tells him with a wry smile, and Geralt nods quietly.

“Listen—”

“Um—”

Geralt breaks off, eyeing Jaskier, motioning to let him continue. Jaskier frowns, but relents.

“After all this, can I—come with you? I’m just—if he’s… dead, then I’m not sure—”

Geralt silences by bringing both of his hands to clasp around Jaskier’s, squeezing gently. “Sleep,” Geralt tells him, “you need—Triss said you’ll want to sleep again.” Already, Jaskier’s eyes are drooping. “And—this isn’t me saying no, by the way, I just want you to ask me when you’re—fully coherent. Sleep. I’ll go check the stables, see if the others have left you a horse. See what provisions there are.”

Jaskier nods, eyes sliding closed, and Geralt helps manoeuvre him so that he’s laying down, saving the cup from spilling water everywhere, placing it on the table at the bedside.

* * *

They sit side by side, Geralt and Jaskier, at one of the long tables in the tavern below, a spread of food before them filched entirely from the inn keeper’s stores. It had been raided by the other whores before they’d left, but there was plenty more still to feed them both, and they had filled saddlebags ready to tie onto the horses when they left.

There was a grey gelding left behind in the stables, and Geralt had found its tack and a blanket and checked its legs and feet for injuries before pronouncing it perfectly sound, if a little well.

Jaskier chews his food almost thoughtfully, then holds his hand out on the table, palm up.

Cautiously, Geralt takes it.

“You love me?” Jaskier asks quietly, and Geralt nods. Figures he should say it.

“I love you.”

There’s a hitch in his breath, and his hand tightens around Geralt’s.

“I love you too,” Jaskier tells him.

It’s all Geralt ever wanted to hear, and it frightens him more than anything—but the fear isn’t nearly as important as the all-consuming _gladness_ that warms him from inside. It’s… something of a novel feeling.

Geralt thinks that maybe getting used to this feeling wouldn’t be so bad.

**Author's Note:**

> Please mind that Geralt never actually rapes Jaskier. Please also note that Jaskier isn't released until the very very end and that Geralt pays him for his services all the way through the fic. Additionally there is some violence towards Jaskier at the end, where he is whipped as punishment.
> 
> Please leave a kudos and a comment! If you can think of any other tags/warnings to be included, please let me know :) Thanks for reading!
> 
> Hit me up on tumblr at redkelpie!


End file.
